


Seasonal Feast

by lferion



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Community: mini_nanowrimo, Counted Word Fic, Drabble, Gen, Immortals in Space, Quadruple Drabble, Seasonal, Thanksgiving, The more things change the more they stay the same
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-25
Updated: 2010-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:45:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harvest festival on Storage</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seasonal Feast

Seasonal feasts - Harvest, hallows, sun-return, the birth and death of Spring, the birth and death of kings, the seasons of life and the seasons of death - have been around as long as people counted seasons, and no advances of civilization had changed that. Every possible detail had altered - the fare, the manners, the venues, the entertainment, the prayers of invocation and thanksgiving, the means of setting out and the means of cleaning up. Even the seasons themselves had changed, but not the idea of a groaning board and well-fed folk.

Methos looked up from the large and alien avian on the platter before him, succulent steam rising from crisped skin that had lately boasted feather-analogs in every shade of emerald picked out in silver-purple. The happy faces of his friends ringed a table that to all appearances was a tablecloth suspended in the air. They had reason to be pleased, Storage-Firsters all: every dish was local grown, husbanded or hunted. The hall stood sturdy against the coming of the second cold, warm within while snowflakes drifted down outside the wall-shield lattice, the roof extracting energy from wide bands of radiation as well as wind and solar tides. Batteries stored the surplus, and this evening festive lamps were lit - glims and glows and solalamps, electrics exciting the phosfire strips to brilliance, the coldcandles shining silver-bright along the outside paths. Economy, utility would all return tomorrow, but tonight they feasted, drank sweet and smokey quaff, boasted, sang and thanked the stars and ships and Luck that brought them here. Tomorrow would bring as well sore heads, and some sore stomachs, but none begrudged the minor pains. Good food in plenty, in better company, the reward of work, celebration of survival, the turning of the great-year on the wheel.

 _The winter-feast of stag and bear and boar, the summer celebration of hare and roe-buck, cherry, fish and pear; autumn apples, berries, nuts; late summer’s grain and honey, beer and mead, the sap and bud of early spring, and all the promise there; the spirit-draughts of Samhain and the bonfires of May. No time or place indifferent, no people so removed from flesh or feeling but who will feast sincere, and find the feast improves._

Details changed and changed again, but the underlying cycles stayed the same. Methos raised the prong and blade to cut the Eekcock, gave thanks, and let the feast begin.


End file.
